Dissertation Research: Ch'orti' Verbal Art and the Poetic Discourse Structures of Maya Hieroglyphs

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

Under the direction of Dr. Brian Stross, Mr. Kerry Hull will collect data for his doctoral dissertation. He will conduct linguistic research on the Ch'orti' Maya language spoken in Guatemala. This language is the closest direct descendent of the language comprising most Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. Hull's year of fieldwork in Ch'orti'-speaking communities will involve participant observation of oral recitation, direct elicitation, and recording through audio media of healing, agricultural, and other ceremonies. The transcriptions of ceremonies and oral traditions will then form the basis for analytic discussions with native speakers to flesh out critical details and opaque allusions in these ancient forms of expression. The results will then be compared to features found in the Maya hieroglyphic script with intent of correlating the poetic discourse forms and archaic metaphorical references in Ch'orti' with those of its ancestral language in the Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. At the present stage of decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing, a large number of expressions can be read syllabically without a full understanding of their metaphorical or ritual meaning. Ch'orti's linguistic affinity to the language of the Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions suggests both languages may also share similar poetic structures and archaic formalized expressions. The significance of this research is twofold. First, the project will directly benefit the ongoing decipherment of the Maya hieroglyphic script. The data gathered from living Ch'orti' speakers will also form the most thorough study so far of the poetic styles of Ch'orti' ritual speech. Hidden within such speech are vestiges of ancient cultural conceptions and metaphorical imagery that will inform research on the language, cultural conceptions, and ritual practices of the ancient Maya. The Ch'orti' data will provide a basis for analyses of stylistically similar ritual forms found in Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions. This aspect of the study will carry the discussion of Maya hieroglyphic writing beyond grammar and vocabulary, showing that this writing system is complex in other domains as well. Second, this project will preserve the currently disappearing forms of poetic speech and ritual knowledge among the Ch'orti'. This documentation will be useful both for future generations of Ch'orti'-speakers and also for scholars of Latin American studies, history, epigraphy, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, ethnopoetics, and ethnography.